The Legal 500

Lincoln House Chambers comprises specialists in criminal, regulatory and civil practice. Based in Manchester, Lincoln House is acknowledged as having a nationwide reputation for providing intelligent, experienced advocates in the most demanding of cases. The set includes 11 silks and 48 juniors. A number of members of chambers hold judicial appointments in the higher courts and in first tier tribunals.

The set: For over 30 years, Lincoln House has provided advocates of distinction. The set owes its reputation to a corps of advocates who insist upon a modern, responsive approach to practice. Since its founding, chambers has guaranteed a dynamic service to its clients. The result has been that members have considerable experience and an impressive circuit record in their practice profiles. Predominantly a criminal set, chambers has also developed strong civil and regulatory practices. This combination of expertise has been valuable to clients concerned with licensing, parole, immigration authorities and a wide variety of regulatory and disciplinary matters.

Lincoln House offers a first-class service in a variety of established and developing fields. This follows an evolution in the organisation of chambers. The aim of these changes has been to preserve chambers’ dominance in its areas of specialism and to promote the idea that instructing counsel from Lincoln House is an advantage in itself. Chambers enjoys a national reputation for being the go-to set for serious crime. Lincoln House today is proud of its strong ethos of excellence, client care and mutual support between members. The set is close to the Civil Justice Centre and Crown Courts in Manchester. For details of Public Access to our barristers, recruitment, lecture programmes, live-link conferencing and training programmes, please contact David Wright in the first instance.

Types of work undertaken: Crime: chambers remains a pre-eminent resource for those needing advice and representation in all fields of criminal practice. Often these include cases of the utmost gravity and of the greatest public interest, and have historically included cases as diverse as R v Shipman and the London City Bond trial. In such cases members of chambers have often been involved at early stages where strategic advice was required. Lincoln House can field advocates in cases across the spectrum of criminal litigation. Recent examples, which include white-collar crime, organised criminal activity, gangland violence and murder, civil disorder and terrorism, can all be found on chambers’ website. Lincoln House has rightly attracted praise for its work in fraud and business crime. This is reflected in a nationwide caseload in many of the major cases of corporate and business-related fraud such as Kent Pharmaceuticals and Operations Tandem (waste disposal fraud), Folkestone (money laundering), Emmersed, Devout and Butte Mining. Practitioners have also been involved in many significant decisions in the appellate courts.

Regulatory: Lincoln House advocates represent parties in a number of fields of regulatory and tribunal work, and in the Administrative Court. Members are regularly instructed to act in disciplinary proceedings before the General Medical Council. Additionally, the set attracts instructions from the IPCC, constabularies and the Police Federation for internal disciplinary tribunals and public law challenges. In the health and safety practice, the experience of members ranges from routine practice (prosecution and defence guidance in Environment Agency/Trading Standards/DEFRA cases) to cases of greater significance (death in custody inquests and gross negligence manslaughter cases). Members of chambers also have experience in larger-scale inquiries (the Barrow Legionella Manslaughter case; the Shipman Inquiry; the North Wales Child Abuse Inquiry).

Civil: the civil team unites a number of fields of practice. The work covered includes general common law and Lincoln House has an established specialist team that concentrates on complex disease work (eg British Coal respiratory disease litigation, miners knee litigation, and cases involving surface dust) and on claims arising out of catastrophic injury. Expertise is available for the conduct of actions for and against the police. The public law team provides solutions for clients who need to challenge unlawful decisions that arise in a criminal context by way of judicial review (eg parole, recall and review, recovery of defence costs orders and search warrants). Members also welcome instructions in a range of tribunals, including cases concerning immigration and VAT.